BOGOTA, Dec 21 - Plan Colombia', the military assistance
package
between
Colombia and the United States was supposed to launch new
prospects for peace
and development but, at year end, it has instead led to a further
escalation of
the internal armed conflict, and the impact of the strategy has
already begun
to be felt by neighbouring countries, say local analysts.

Colombian Foreign Minister Guillermo Fernandez and U.S.
Ambassador to
Bogota
Anne Patterson launched the Plan Colombia on Sep 28, with the
signing of an
agreement for the first disbursement of 800 million dollars in aid
for the
fight against drug trafficking.

Then, on Dec 2 there was the signing of an accord with a rural
community in
the southeastern department of Putumayo for the eradication of
illicit
crops by
hand which one local magazine Cambio' saw as marking another
starting-point
for the Plan Colombia.

When President Andres Pastrana took office in August 1998, his
chief aims
were to launch peace talks with the guerrillas, reactivate the
slumping
economy, strengthen the justice system and crack down on drug
trafficking.

In early 1999, the Pastrana administration began peace talks
with the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the largest rebel
group.

The president also made his first trip to Washington in search
of aid
against the drug trade. But when he got there, ''they changed the
script on
him,'' according to Marco Romero of the Peace Colombia Initiative,
a coalition
created in September by 60 local non-governmental organisations
(NGOs) seeking
an alternative to the Plan Colombia.

Pastrana's talks with U.S. congressional leaders and the head
of the White
House office on National Drug Control Policy, Barry McCaffrey,
gave rise to
the
Plan Colombia, said Romero.

The programme, which the two governments describe as ''an
integrated
strategy for building peace, strengthening the institutions of the
state and
fighting drug trafficking,'' is painted by Romero in a very
different
light. In
fact, the activist labelled it ''a war plan.''

Romero explained that ''the change in script was seen in how
Congress
earmarked the special aid'' for Colombia requested by President
Bill Clinton.

The price tag on Pastrana's flagship project is seven billion
dollars, four
billion of which will be provided by the Colombian government, and
1.3 billion
of which will come from the United States in the biggest package
of U.S.
aid in
Colombian history.

The Pastrana administration is hoping the rest will be financed
by other
donor countries and multilateral lending institutions. The
governments of
Spain, Japan and Canada and international lenders pledged 871
million dollars
at a meeting of donors held in Madrid in the middle of this year.

The European Union (EU), which the Colombian government hoped
would come
through with the rest of the aid, announced at a second donors
meeting, on Oct
24 in Bogota, that it would provide 300 million dollars from 2000
to 2006, but
on the condition that the aid only be used for infrastructure
works and social
development projects in areas affected by the eradication of drug
crops.

Around 70 percent of the U.S. aid is to go towards financing,
training and
supplying army anti-narcotics battalions operating in southeastern
Colombia, an
area of FARC influence where an estimated 60 percent of Colombia's
coca is
grown.

In support of their request for aid to Colombia, U.S. Secretary
of State
Madeleine Albright and drug czar McCaffrey told the U.S. Congress
that the
funds were to be used for ''restoring order in southeastern
Colombia.''

McCaffrey said at that time that the Colombian departments of
Caquet and
Putumayo were in the grip of rebel groups, which he said were
largely financed
by drug traffickers operating in the area.

He added that the drug trade and its ties with the insurgents
had become a
national security problem for the United States and for the region
as a whole.

Romero said such remarks substantiated the assertion by peace
activists
that
the U.S. strategy was based on a strengthening of Colombia's armed
forces,
''which would have a hard time obtaining foreign aid otherwise.''

He said the military component of Pastrana's anti-drug plan was
leading to
the ''narco-tisation'' of the peace process, and to a further
escalation of
the
war, because the guerrillas would respond by building up their
military
capacity.

Jorge Rojas, director of the Consultancy on Human Rights and
Displacement
(Codhes), said the Plan Colombia was part of a ''long-term,
continent-wide
U.S.
strategy that has very precise objectives.''

Rojas told IPS that under the pretext of the fight against
drugs, control
over national territory, the exploitation of natural resources,
and the
bio-diversity of the Amazon jungle were being put at risk for the
benefit of
the United States.

The Plan Colombia is not a peace plan, he maintained, because
''simply the
announcement of the programme led to an unexpected increase in
armed
activity''
in the department of Putumayo, and the forced displacement of
thousands of
peasant farmers to Ecuador.

Rojas reported that more than 12,000 people had fled to
Ecuador, Peru and
Venezuela from January to September, prompting those countries to
step up
military controls along their borders with Colombia.

The eradication, by hand, of drug crops by local peasant
farmers cannot not
be considered the chief objective of Pastrana's anti-drug efforts,
the real
aim
of which is the destruction of the large plantations and the fight
against
bands of drug traffickers, said Rojas.

The agreement signed this month for the voluntary elimination
of coca crops
involves 600 families who own a total of 1,580 hectares, of the
more than
70,000 hectares planted in coca in Putumayo. The total number of
hectares
under
coca in Colombia is estimated at over 120,000 hectares.

The coordinator of Indigenous Organisations of the Amazon
Basin, Antonio
Jacanamijoy, said the manual eradication of crops ''could be a
good measure''
if it were carried out in consultation with local communities, if
the
agreements reached were respected, and if development alternatives
were
provided.

But Jacanamijoy, a member of the Inga ethnic group that resides
in
Putumayo,
told IPS that his community was opposed to the Plan Colombia
because it had
not
been consulted regarding the new strategy which, moreover, failed
to address
local needs.

The department of Putumayo, which is now home to some 350,000
of Colombia's
40 million people, began to receive a flow of settlers in the
1950s, who were
drawn by the prospect of incomes from rubber-tapping. More
colonists were
attracted by the oil industry in the 1980s and, more recently, by
the
option of
growing coca.

However, the region was neglected by the state, and is now the
site of turf
wars between leftist insurgents and right-wing paramilitaries.

According to Jacanamijoy, ''the debate over the Plan Colombia
has been
going
on for a long time, but it is the inhabitants of Putumayo who are
suffering
the
war in the midst of the most basic unmet needs, such as a lack of
food,
channels of communications, health services and education.''

The EU delegate to the donors meeting in Bogota, Renaud Vignal,
said the
European bloc's contribution was focused on social aspects and the
strengthening of democratic institutions, to back Pastrana's
efforts for
peace.

The EU believes Colombia's political conflict requires a
negotiated
solution, which it supports. But it will not quarrel with the
United States,
its main trading partner, over the Plan Colombia, local analysts
pointed out.

Jaime Zuluaga, a researcher at the National University's
Institute of
Political Studies and International Relations, said it was only to
be expected
that some EU countries would have reservations regarding the Plan
Colombia,
because ''Pastrana's plan is basically oriented towards an
escalation of the
war.''

Many European countries were upset that the government's plan
failed to
take
into account the views of social or political organisations, or of
rebel
groups
involved in, or planning to engage in, peace talks.

The Peace Colombia Initiative argues that the government
strategy will have
a severe impact on small farmers, the weakest link in the drug
trafficking
chain.

Andean Action, a private institution dedicated to studying the
drug
trade in
Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, and the Amsterdam-based Transnational
Institute
agreed that the eradication of illicit crops would have to form
part of ''an
integrated proposal,'' which should be agreed with local
communities, in order
to sever the circuit ''of the drug and war economy of armed
actors,'' the real
motors behind the drug trade.